These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

“Oh and just so you know, dreams aren’t only for teenagers. Dreams are for everyone. There’s no age or limit to dreams. And dreaming doesn’t make you a fool, it makes you a visionary and —”

“What’s your deal with long hair?” he asks abruptly, putting an end to my tirade.

“What?”

His eyes are still shining but along with that glint, they weirdly hold amusement as well. Much stronger amusement than when he was watching me take in his living room, much stronger than any other time before that even. “Your hair.”

My breaths are heaving and I’m sure my face is flushed at the moment with my irritation. But still I look down at it.

My long brown tresses are half over my shoulder and half flowing down my back. I’m not sure why we’re talking about my hair all of a sudden but I glance up at him and say, “Yes?”

He flicks his eyes to it for a second before saying, “It’s long.”

I frown at him as I run my fingers through the strands. “I know.”

“You could use it to climb down a tower. Or at least a tree.”

I blink, my fingers coming to a halt. “Are you saying that I’ve got Rapunzel hair?”

“No.” He shakes his head slowly. “I’m saying why do you have Rapunzel hair?”

I narrow my eyes at him and his amusement only grows.

“That Disney movie knowledge,” I ask then, raising my eyebrows. “Is it because you’ve got a sister my age?”

He thrusts his hands down into his pockets. “Yes. Who also happens to be your best friend. The one you were defending so prettily just now.”

Despite my ire, I blush at his prettily and now his lips are twitching.

Which I have to say melts that ire of mine some more.

“Because I like it, long hair,” I decide to answer him, curling a strand around my finger. “Because it’s one thing my mom and I agreed on. That long hair looks pretty. On a girl.” But maybe my ire hasn’t melted all the way because I make sure to look at his gorgeous hair and point out, “Not on a boy though.”

If I thought he’d be offended, then I was wrong.

He’s far from offended.

He smiles and I’d even call it half a smile because it’s bigger than all the other smiles he’s given me so far and my heart almost bursts in my chest.

“Well, good thing that I’m a man then.” He glances over to my hair again before saying, “And as much as I hate to admit it, I’d say that your mom was right.”

It’s time.

We’re in his bedroom and I take my clothes off.

Or at least it feels like it.

In reality, it’s only my sweater. But since I’m doing it under his scrutiny, it feels like I’m getting naked.

Because it’s intense and exposing, his scrutiny.

With the way he’s watching me from across the room, it makes me feel like he’s the artist and I’m the muse.

But that’s not the case, is it?

The case is that I’m here to paint him.

I’m also here to do something else, something far more difficult than sketching him on paper.

So that’s why back in the dining room, where after looking at all the photos he told me to sit at the table because we were going to eat — the Mexican food that he’d picked up for me because it’s my favorite — I said that I wanted to paint him in his bedroom.

And in order to convince him to say yes, I told him that it was even more of a personal space.

A space that belongs to him and him only.

So it will be good for the essence. That I was trying to capture.

And all he said was fine. Like he did back on the soccer field when I proposed this crazy idea of letting me sketch him in his house.

But anyway, now we’re here.

In his bedroom, and when I’m done taking my sweater off, I let it drop on the foot of his very Spartan-looking bed with its dark-colored blanket and crisp white sheet.

To gather my courage, I run my hands down my pink dress, making my bracelets clink and my arm chains tinkle. I even go so far as to graze my fingers over the elaborate four-chain necklace — with pink stones to match my dress — that I’m wearing.

My entire outfit, my dress and my ornaments, has been carefully picked out by Poe, since she’s the fashion queen. And up until now I thought it was a little too much, a little too exposing, with only thin spaghetti straps holding the dress up and a wide square neckline that shows off a ton of my almost D-cup cleavage. Not to mention the length. The hem hits me somewhere mid-thigh, leaving my legs bare.

But I don’t think that anymore.